I’m a former moderate-to-heavy k user (nothing crazy, just used 1/2 gram once or twice a month for a few years until a yearish long period where it turned to 1/2 gram once or twice a week) and stopped due to bladder discomfort. I have underlying chronic illness (some mysterious autoimmune-flavored inflammatory stuff, asthma, endometriosis) so I can partly blame that but I also know that my use was not light.
First time I noticed the discomfort I stopped pretty quickly for 6-7 months. I saw a urologist who specializes in ketamine cystitis, he ran some tests and assured me I had no serious damage. He prescribed tamsulosin which, along with my regimen of d-mannose, PEA, and NAC, cleared me up during that period of abstinence. Doc cautioned against returning to the frequency of my heavier use but didn’t call for permanent abstinence. I came back to it able to use more moderately and cautiously with no side effects, but then after overdoing it again one night I felt the symptoms again. I took another 6 month break and this time, my first time using again that brought UTI like symptoms despite all my precautions.
All of this is just to say, I can’t ignore the universe’s messaging that it’s time to hang up my hat. As much as I feel regrets over my period of overuse and am tempted to point fingers at people in my life who gaslit and enabled me in order to protect their own habits, I’m coming to a point of acceptance that I made my bed and now I gotta lay in it. Since there is no visible permanent damage, I believe that someday this could be a thing I use therapeutically a few times a year, potentially with some mild side effects, but I know that that day is the distant future and that my days of using casually/recreationally are fully behind me.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling a pretty notable grief over this. I really thought my efforts toward harm reduction would allow me to maintain a more long term relationship with this drug, and I am angry at myself for ruining this and sad that it ended up not being the case. I do feel like my life is missing a tool that was useful to a number of contexts, even if it was a complicated relationship.
I’ve been dabbling in taking a small barely-psychoactive dose of LSA or Psilocybin, and that’s nice but mild and a time commitment. I’ll probably experiment with higher doses for some contexts, but I don’t know if I ever fully want to trip on a dancefloor, for instance. I’ll have a beer or two but I don’t really like drinking, too toxic and don’t enjoy the effect. I’m a decade long cannabis user, but lately asthma symptoms have resigned me to mostly edibles and those just aren’t the same. Benzo addiction took all of 2015-2017 from me so I won’t touch anything GABAergic (besides the occasional two beers). Cocaine and other stimulants make me feel tweaked. MDMA and MDA too, although 2cb is ok here and there.
As far as the use cases I had for ketamine in my life go—dancefloor liberation, social empathenogen-like effects, creativity, self therapy, occasional solace from chronic pain—I always did prefer dissociatives. Ketamine was my favorite, with DCK and 2f-dck in close second. Enjoyed Mxipr the one time I tried. MXE always felt cold and cracked out, nitrous too (not to mention impractical). I’ve always been scared of the vibes of pcp analogues and dxm and their potential to trigger psychosis or mania. All of this is pretty much irrelevant though, because all have been shown to cause similar bladder effects.
Basically, I’m out of drugs to try lol. I feel like (even if my abuse was on the less extreme side) my overuse of the few drugs I have enjoyed in my life (cannabis, benzos, and ketamine) sabotaged my ability to enjoy them sustainably. Having a body that is prone to inflammation and high interoception doesn’t help, but I take responsibility for my excess too.
But I don’t feel like I am somebody whose situation demands sobriety—I feel more in control of my ability to use drugs in a responsible manner than ever, and all health concerns aside, I am on paper a fairly healthy and low risk user. Honestly, I feel like any valid argument I could make in favor of the benefits of these drugs is secondary to the notion that it is ok to just simply want to be able to alter one’s consciousness. I’m just running out of nontoxic ways to do that
anybody have any recommendations? I specifically am missing the way that the body high from dissos helped me to briefly escape a body that I often feel trapped in and experience a physical euphoria that made me more appreciative of the body I’m in. My therapist, who has helped me come a long way in coping with this without drugs, is sympathetic and has cautiously endorsed my exploration of a safer and less toxic alternative.
First time I noticed the discomfort I stopped pretty quickly for 6-7 months. I saw a urologist who specializes in ketamine cystitis, he ran some tests and assured me I had no serious damage. He prescribed tamsulosin which, along with my regimen of d-mannose, PEA, and NAC, cleared me up during that period of abstinence. Doc cautioned against returning to the frequency of my heavier use but didn’t call for permanent abstinence. I came back to it able to use more moderately and cautiously with no side effects, but then after overdoing it again one night I felt the symptoms again. I took another 6 month break and this time, my first time using again that brought UTI like symptoms despite all my precautions.
All of this is just to say, I can’t ignore the universe’s messaging that it’s time to hang up my hat. As much as I feel regrets over my period of overuse and am tempted to point fingers at people in my life who gaslit and enabled me in order to protect their own habits, I’m coming to a point of acceptance that I made my bed and now I gotta lay in it. Since there is no visible permanent damage, I believe that someday this could be a thing I use therapeutically a few times a year, potentially with some mild side effects, but I know that that day is the distant future and that my days of using casually/recreationally are fully behind me.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling a pretty notable grief over this. I really thought my efforts toward harm reduction would allow me to maintain a more long term relationship with this drug, and I am angry at myself for ruining this and sad that it ended up not being the case. I do feel like my life is missing a tool that was useful to a number of contexts, even if it was a complicated relationship.
I’ve been dabbling in taking a small barely-psychoactive dose of LSA or Psilocybin, and that’s nice but mild and a time commitment. I’ll probably experiment with higher doses for some contexts, but I don’t know if I ever fully want to trip on a dancefloor, for instance. I’ll have a beer or two but I don’t really like drinking, too toxic and don’t enjoy the effect. I’m a decade long cannabis user, but lately asthma symptoms have resigned me to mostly edibles and those just aren’t the same. Benzo addiction took all of 2015-2017 from me so I won’t touch anything GABAergic (besides the occasional two beers). Cocaine and other stimulants make me feel tweaked. MDMA and MDA too, although 2cb is ok here and there.
As far as the use cases I had for ketamine in my life go—dancefloor liberation, social empathenogen-like effects, creativity, self therapy, occasional solace from chronic pain—I always did prefer dissociatives. Ketamine was my favorite, with DCK and 2f-dck in close second. Enjoyed Mxipr the one time I tried. MXE always felt cold and cracked out, nitrous too (not to mention impractical). I’ve always been scared of the vibes of pcp analogues and dxm and their potential to trigger psychosis or mania. All of this is pretty much irrelevant though, because all have been shown to cause similar bladder effects.
Basically, I’m out of drugs to try lol. I feel like (even if my abuse was on the less extreme side) my overuse of the few drugs I have enjoyed in my life (cannabis, benzos, and ketamine) sabotaged my ability to enjoy them sustainably. Having a body that is prone to inflammation and high interoception doesn’t help, but I take responsibility for my excess too.
But I don’t feel like I am somebody whose situation demands sobriety—I feel more in control of my ability to use drugs in a responsible manner than ever, and all health concerns aside, I am on paper a fairly healthy and low risk user. Honestly, I feel like any valid argument I could make in favor of the benefits of these drugs is secondary to the notion that it is ok to just simply want to be able to alter one’s consciousness. I’m just running out of nontoxic ways to do that
anybody have any recommendations? I specifically am missing the way that the body high from dissos helped me to briefly escape a body that I often feel trapped in and experience a physical euphoria that made me more appreciative of the body I’m in. My therapist, who has helped me come a long way in coping with this without drugs, is sympathetic and has cautiously endorsed my exploration of a safer and less toxic alternative.
